In a whole fruit juice extractor such as disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,970,861; 5,992,311; 5,996,485; and 6,568,319, the disclosures which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety, the motion of the extractor cups and the orifice tube received within the strainer tube are each controlled by a drive mechanism, for example, a camshaft that supports mechanical drive cams. An orifice beam drive cam engages a drive mechanism connected to an orifice beam, which supports orifice tubes received within strainer tubes. Although the motions are separate, the drive cams and extractor cups and movement of the orifice beam are synchronized. Typically a single camshaft supports at least a drive cam (or cup cam), which engages cam followers located on a cup support member, i.e., a cup beam. The cup beam cam followers are held in contact with the cams through the use of springs. The camshaft rotates the drive cams, which drive the moveable extractor cups into the fixed extractor cups located on a cup bridge.
The orifice beam is mounted for movement within a product material area and supports orifice tubes that are each received within a respective strainer tube mounted on the juice manifold. An orifice cam is mounted on the camshaft and engages a drive mechanism, which connects to the orifice beam. As the orifice cam rotates, the drive mechanism reciprocates the orifice beam during extractor operation, driving the orifice tube in and out of a respective strainer tube.
The drive mechanism can typically be formed as orifice pull rods or other drive rods that accumulate product material and debris during extractor operation. Although some prior art juice extractor machines have included a side panel where the pull rods are positioned outside a side wall penetration, there has been no window or cover, and thus, debris and product material still penetrated between the side panel and outer cover over the extractor frame, causing debris and product material build-up. This has been found unacceptable.